Inside the Star

Why Easter's so early and sometimes very late

And suddenly – today is Easter Sunday. How did that happen? Weren't the kids out of school only last week for March break? And aren't we still wearing parkas? And isn't that a foot of snow I see covering the herb garden?

The first device to reliably compute the correct dates for Easter is believed by some to be the astronomical clock in the Cathedrale de Strasbourg in France. It also features a perpetual calendar.

By:Leslie ScrivenerFeature Writer, Published on Sun Mar 23 2008

And suddenly – today is Easter Sunday. How did that happen? Weren't the kids out of school only last week for March break? And aren't we still wearing parkas? And isn't that a foot of snow I see covering the herb garden?

This is the earliest Easter in nearly a century – the last time Easter fell this early was in 1913. And no one alive today will see another Easter this early in the year. The holiday (or holy day) won't fall again on March 23 – which is the second-earliest day possible – until 2160.

But if you enjoy celebrating Easter later in the year and hope to wear something other than your winter woollies, hang on – there's something to look forward to in 2038. That year, Easter is on the latest day possible: April 25.

How can there be an almost five-week span of Easter dates? The full explanation can hurt your head, but in short:

It's commonly said that Easter falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox. That's mostly true. The dates for Easter were set out in a set of tables that used a complex mathematical formula to work out the future dates of the full moon and the equinox. They were developed by bishops at the Council of Nicea, convened in 325 AD by Emperor Constantine, who wanted to set a common Sunday for Easter celebrations around the world and to know in advance when it would be.

As J.L. Heilbron notes in his book The Sun in the Church: Cathedrals as Solar Observatories:

"The computation of the Easter canon was neither easy nor accurate. Everything depended on exact average values of the periods between successive vernal equinoxes and successive full moons."

The bishops set March 21 as the date for the vernal equinox, even though it can occur earlier, as it did this year (on March 20). As a result, there is an "ecclesiastical" full moon and an "astronomical" full moon; Easter can be anywhere from late March to the end of April and has come to be known as a "movable feast."

Some suggest it's time to abandon the old tables. "The problem is the churches (leaders) didn't look up into the sky," says Canon John Gibaut, director of faith and order for the World Council of Churches, speaking from Geneva. "They looked at tables that have been set years and years in advance."

Gibaut's commission grapples with theological issues that divide churches, and the date of Easter is one of them. Those Orthodox churches that still use the old Julian calendar celebrate Easter on a different date, this year, April 27. Just as the Western churches prepare to celebrate Easter, the Orthodox churches are at the beginning of Lent. (The Western churches follow the Gregorian calendar tables, introduced in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII.)

Gibaut, who studied at Trinity College at the University of Toronto, says that setting a fixed date for Easter – say, the second Sunday in April – may suit commercial interests but isn't likely to be embraced by faith groups.

"A lunar calendar is inconvenient, especially for markets," says Gibaut, who also taught at Saint Paul University in Ottawa. "It's not about being convenient, it's about being faithful to a tradition and to history. Jesus didn't die on the second Friday of April, he died on the Friday after the first full moon after the spring equinox, when at that date, was also the date of Passover."

The link to the Jewish Passover is important, he adds. "It's part of rooting it in history." And he raises another problem: "What if Christians were to move but Judaism didn't? Another historical link would be broken."

But he does believe the differences between the Orthodox and Western churches' dating of Easter can be sorted out. At a World Council of Churches meeting in 1997, it was proposed that the churches abandon the old method of looking at tables and rely on the best astronomical calculation for spring so that they would celebrate Easter on a common date.

But there were fears that the Western churches were imposing their practices on the Orthodox churches. "There are deep questions of culture and self-identity," says Gibaut, as in the Russian Orthodox Church, which endured decades of communism, and Orthodox churches in the Middle East, where they are in minority positions. Following their own calendar is part of their assertion of identity, he says.

Though the subject of harmonizing the dates comes up every year at Easter, progress is slow. "Eleven years is not a long time in the ecumenical world," says Gibaut.

The Roman Catholic Church, however, is open to a "stable date," says Rev. Damian MacPherson, director of Ecumenism and Interfaith Affairs for the Toronto archdiocese. "We'd hardly skip a beat, we're so used to celebrating Christmas on December 25."

Still, some like the notion of conducting their lives according to the movement of spheres.

"Frankly, I like the kind of the rhythm of the moon setting the date for Easter," says Bishop Susan Johnson, head of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, speaking from Winnipeg. "So much of our life is determined by calendars other than the calendar of the Earth.

"We're becoming more aware of the stewardship of creation, the greening of the Earth and church. This time, more than any other," she says, "I'd be reluctant to consider a fixed date."

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